The Boy and the Heron Movie Details:
| Kanji | 君たちはどう生きるか |
| Literal meaning | How Do You Live? |
| Revised Hepburn | Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Genre | Animation Fantasy |
| Release date | July 14, 2023 |
| Running time | 2hr 4min |
| Age rating | PG-13 |
| Starring | Soma Santoki Masaki Suda Aimyon Yoshino Kimura Shōhei Hino Ko Shibasaki Takuya Kimura |
| Directed by | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Written by | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Produced by | Toshio Suzuki |
| Cinematography by | Atsushi Okui |
| Edited by | Takeshi Seyama |
| Music by | Joe Hisaishi |
| Production Company | Studio Ghibli |
| Distributor | Toho |
The Boy and the Heron Movie Voice Cast & Characters:
| Character | Japanese | English |
|---|---|---|
| Mahito Maki | Soma Santoki | Luca Padovan |
| The Grey Heron | Masaki Suda | Robert Pattinson |
| Lady Himi | Aimyon | Karen Fukuhara |
| Natsuko | Yoshino Kimura | Gemma Chan |
| Shoichi Maki | Takuya Kimura | Christian Bale |
| Granduncle | Shōhei Hino | Mark Hamill |
| Kiriko | Ko Shibasaki | Florence Pugh |
| Noble Pelican | Kaoru Kobayashi | Willem Dafoe |
| The Parakeet King | Jun Kunimura | Dave Bautista |
| Izumi (Maid #1) | Keiko Takeshita | Denise Pickering |
| Utako (Maid #2) | Jun Fubuki | Barbara Rosenblat |
| Eriko (Maid #3) | Sawako Agawa | Melora Harte |
| Aiko (Maid #4) | Shinobu Otake | Barbara Goodson |
| Warawara | Karen Takizawa | Karen Takizawa |
| Parakeets | – | Mamoudou Athie Tony Revolori Dan Stevens |
Storyline:
Through encounters with his friends and uncle, follows a teenage boy’s psychological development. He enters a magical world with a talking grey heron after finding an abandoned tower in his new town.
The Boy and the Heron Movie Budget & Box Office Collection:
| Worldwide Collection | US$294.2 million |
About The Boy and the Heron Movie:
The film is inspired by the 1937 novel of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino but has an original story that is not a direct adaptation of the novel.
It will be Hayao Miyazaki’s final film and is intended to be his parting gift to his grandson.
The film was released without any traditional marketing campaign, with no trailers nor promotional stills of the film released before its premiere except a single poster.
Hayao Miyazaki started working on the film in 2016 without receiving an official green light.
In a late 2019 interview with NHK, Miyazaki stated that the film is not to be expected anytime soon; he said that in his younger age, he used to produce 10 minutes of animation every month, but now his speed was reduced to 1 minute per month.
Hayao Miyazaki originally hoped to finish and release the film in the summer of 2020 to coincide with the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan; which were eventually postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Boy and the Heron was theatrically released in Japan on July 14, 2023, by Toho, and was screened in both traditional theaters and other premium formats such as IMAX.
In Japan, The Boy and the Heron grossed $13.2 million (1.83 billion yen) in its opening weekend, becoming the biggest opening in Studio Ghibli’s history and surpassing Howl’s Moving Castle’s 1.48 billion yen debut in 2004. The film earned $1.7 million from 44 IMAX screens, setting a new 3-day record.
